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There comes a time in many a building’s life when its current life must come to an end.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be torn down. It could be repurposed or modernized and returned to productive use. Either way, it will need to be decommissioned — a fancy word for removing the building completely from operation.
That means clearing out its entire inventory inside. Everything must go, down to the furniture, fixtures, and any other materials that would be unsafe to leave behind. It also means disconnecting all utilities, switching off the water, draining the pipes, and shutting down the HVAC systems. It also means taking extra safety measures to ensure that the building doesn’t pose any kind of hazard while sitting vacant — so, securing doors and windows, providing some ventilation to prevent excess moisture or mold, clearing the surrounding vegetation, accounting for fire safety, making sure the roof and facades are weather-resistant, and perhaps installing a security system.
So you see, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to not only leaving a building that can remain intact while not in use, but also ensuring that what you leave behind won’t become a public safety hazard in any way.
Greener pastures
When it comes to the removal of furniture for decommissioned office space, there are basically three options available besides the landfill: recycle, sell or donate.
Bowie-based Installnet International LLC’s Ecoserv is a service that takes over that task. To date, the company said, it has completed 5,949 decommission projects, diverted 23,269 tons of furniture, fixtures and office equipment from landfills, and donated assets to more than 2,500 nonprofits and community groups, from domestic violence shelters to police stations.
"We have a full-time outreach team that works with our project managers to find homes for items that are donated. They look for nearby nonprofit or community groups, so we avoid generating emissions from shipping too far, and match up the groups’ needs with the items we have."
– Dale Ewing, founder and CEO, Installnet
Q&A with David Cox
President, JK Moving Services
JK Moving Services recently announced the introduction of a decommissioning program to better serve clients downsizing their office space. But President David Cox said the company has offered the service for years. “We’ve done it for decades. It’s just the need for it has just exploded in the last year,” he said — more than triple the amount of work JK saw pre-Covid.
Here’s what else he said about decommissioning office space, how it works and why demand has picked up so much (edited for space and clarity).
Why is demand for this service exploding now? So as a moving company, we’ve seen just a huge increase in the need for this activity recently, and it’s kind of driven by the double whammy of the Covid transition to remote workers combined with the interest rates.
How do interest rates factor in? The interest rates going up has had a really significant impact on the rent costs, the lease costs of businesses. And so they’re looking at the space that they occupy. And when the renewal comes up or there’s an issue with the lease where they’ve got to take out a new lease, have much, much higher interest rates, they’re making the decision to either vacate space or significantly downsize space.
What does the typical office decommission look like? So if you picture a business that has, let’s say pre-Covid they had 100 workers, and when the pandemic came along, they went remote and then went back to 20% to 30% of its workforce coming into the office. Obviously, you don’t need nearly as much space, but you also don’t need nearly as much hardware. You don’t need nearly as much furniture — as many chairs, conference rooms, those types of things. So the process of decommissioning is giving back that space, which isn’t just downsizing the space, but it’s everything that occupies the space.
And how do you do that? It’s figuring out what to do with the furniture, what to do with electronics returning. In some cases, as a lease expires, you may be giving that space back to the landlord. Typically, the way the lease reads, you have to return it in the same condition that you leased it in. So any enhancements that you’ve made to that building, whether it’s changing walls or structure or new carpeting or those types of things, you typically have some expense involved in addressing those issues and returning it to original condition.
Does that get complicated? For example, if you have a bunch of furniture, what are you going to do with it? So you can store it. That’s an option. You can sell it on the used furniture market. That can be challenging, but it is an option that some pursue. You can also dispose of it. And there are some challenges with that recently as Loudoun County landfill rules are they will only take debris and waste that has originated in Loudoun County. So you have to give it a lot of thought.
What else can complicate projects in the D.C. area? These projects can get interesting in our nation’s capital. In one recent decommission project, protests in the city severely impacted our scheduling and routing. We had to make daily adjustments to our plans to react to what was happening with the protestors.
How big or small are these decommissions usually? We’ve done everything from an entire building down to, you know, a single floor or part of a floor. Decommissioning might involve shrinking your space — staying in the same building on the same floor, but shrinking your space — only occupying a half of the footprint that you were previously in. And it can be as extensive as doing a whole building. Decommissioning an entire building might involve taking all of the structured cabling out of the building. It can get fairly complex.
What are the first and last steps in a decommission? The first step is always putting a plan together. You’ve got to have typically a project manager assigned to understand what are the goals of the project, what space will be given back, who’s going to be involved in all the decision making? Who’s going to actually execute on all those steps? Developing a budget for the timeline. Everything involved in just putting together a solid project plan. And the final step is ultimately the walk through at the end of the decommission to give the space back and make sure that you’re compliant with all the requirements typically outlined by the landlord in the lease.
How long do these projects typically take to complete? It can vary, as you would imagine, based on the size of the project. We can complete one in less than a week. And a large decommission project may extend over months.
What’s your advice to those thinking of doing this? My advice would be start early, engage a lot of people, ask a lot of questions, and know what all your options are.
Full-service asking rent per square foot
| Rank | Prior Rank | Name/Prior/Address |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | 80 M St. SE |
2 | 2 | 1050 K St. NW |
3 | 3 | 1700 New York Ave. NW |
Triple-net asking rent per square foot
| Rank | Prior Rank | Name/Prior/Address |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | 101 Constitution Ave. NW |
2 | 2 | America's Square |
3 | 3 | 600 5th St. NW |